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Small-cap stocks, which are usually defined as companies sporting a $300 million to $2 billion market cap, can be risky because they often lack time-tested business models. However, they also offer superior growth potential, and when you find a winner, the rewards can be enormous over the long term.

So we asked three Motley Fool contributors to name a small-cap stock in which they see a lot of potential right now. They think that at the top of your buy list should be drug stocks Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ:VKTX) and Acceleron Pharma (NASDAQ:XLRN), along with mining company SSR Mining (NASDAQ:SSRM).

A winner that should keep on winning

Keith Speights (Viking Therapeutics): In July, I picked Viking as one of the top biotech stocks to buy for the second half of 2018 despite the fact that it had already chalked up a 130% year-to-date gain at the time. Since making that call, Viking has nearly doubled, but I think it can go a lot higher.

The big recent catalyst for Viking was some really positive results from a mid-stage clinical study evaluating VK2809 in treating nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and elevated LDL cholesterol. Viking’s experimental drug particularly showed promise in treating one type of NAFLD — nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)…

Read the original article at Fool.com